


Honey

by Marmaladeghost



Category: Happy Days
Genre: Boys In Love, M/M, boys VERY in love, happy days has no plot without Fonzie being head over heels for Richie, it’s alright kiddos, non-graphic mentions of sex, obscure wording on purpose, the author is very emotional about these stupid goofy lovebirds, the author was a poetic headass about all this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 02:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmaladeghost/pseuds/Marmaladeghost
Summary: What is it to love like you were made for it?





	Honey

**Author's Note:**

> okay so since I’m the world’s biggest Happy Days nerd and I make like 30% of all the content for this fandom, I obviously write an embarrassing amount of fic (the term “fic” being used loosely; it’s mostly just me getting emotional and scrawling down ideas in a notebook). I finally, after a year of unfinished plans, decided to actually write and post something. alas, here it is. 5 pages worth of me waxing poetic over this grossly in love couple. enjoy!
> 
> all my love to my best friend Sarah, who inspired me, dealt with my ramblings, and beta’d. she is simply the bomb.

Fonzie doesn’t believe in love until the word passes Richie Cunningham’s lips. 

If his father’s taught him anything, it’s that love, or the idea of it, is a farce. Putting trust in it is a fool’s errand. Fonzie’s always been good at following his father - running away, sleeping around, handing out shiners - so it should be easy. It is easy. Emotion is a speck on the horizon until one day, Richie says it, like really says it and talks about it like it’s some wondrous thing, and Fonzie can’t help but believe it. He’s sold.

From then on, it’s everywhere. Everything. It’s in the thrum of his engine as he kicks it into gear. It’s on the James Dean poster in his closet. It’s in every Elvis record he owns. He hears it in Joanie’s laugh, feels it in Mrs. C’s hand on his cheek, and sees it in freckles and blue eyes and gapped teeth. Finding love in him is terrifying, but so, so easy. It comes natural, like it’s been there all along.

It’s late spring when the dam breaks, because what better time to drown then 2AM on a breezy May morning? They’re both gasping for air, swimming in the muddy waters of _I’m in love with you and I shouldn’t be,_ but all the same they grip each other’s hands and they go under together. The waves soon get less murky. They quickly discover that it’s worth it, that it’s really all it’s cracked up to be. Fonzie’s a believer now, but it’s more than that- he’s a follower, worshiping at the church of intertwined legs and arms around your lover’s waist. Richie’s laughter is the sweetest hymn he’s ever heard. Fonzie’s not soft by any means; he was born with sharp edges and even Richie’s soft kisses can’t sand those away. But he’s learning. Trust, care, control. Richie is an excellent teacher.

Expecting things doesn’t really make dealing with them any easier, and fall becomes a mourning season. When Fonzie gets back behind the wheel of Richie’s car, ready to finally leave a sprawling campus, a hand catches his wrist. _You’ll visit, right?_ Fonzie promises, because it’s what Richie needs, but he can’t. He won’t. When the time comes and goes, he pulls a double shift at the garage and sends the money to Richie as soon as he gets it. He doesn’t remember how to live before Richie. He knows that with the way he’s going, Richie’s going to be all over the place all the time for the rest of their lives. He knows that the kind of loneliness his boy has left him with is not easily fought, but he’ll have to try anyway. 

He’s sick for three days. Richie is livid.

Fonzie is at Richie’s dorm doorsteps as soon as Marion gives the okay. Forgiveness is the next lesson learned, and it’s the hardest one yet. Forgiveness is slammed doors and wet, angry eyes yelling about pay phones and tuition. It is a tennis match of emotion against emotion, of _we can’t hold hands through this_  and _of course we can, everything we do we do together!_  A flurry of insecure adoration disguised as poorly put together insults. It’s when, finally, the shouting stops because you missed each other too much and you are _so_ in love, when he pulls you inside and into his arms. Forgiveness is when you both announce that love, really and truly, for the first time. Fonzie doesn’t skip a weekend after that; no amount of pride is worth seeing Richie cry. 

Only so long after an explosion can you wait for the boom, and the both of them have always been go-getting bastards. All the will in the world couldn’t keep Fonzie from saying _yes, please_ to Richie when he fixes him in that soft blue stare. Everything about Richie is soft, and laying with him is no different. Still terribly clumsy, like teenagers in the dark, but every noise, every push and pull and giggle and whisper is so, so soft. Fonzie subconsciously thinks of the time it takes to kiss every spot on Richie he can reach as a sort of final exam, another lesson Richie has successfully taught him: patience. He knows now that it is so worth the wait. It somehow takes forever and no time at all, and then when the boom comes, when they hear and see and feel everything that that four letter word stands for, the stars burst. The supernova comes to pass, and they’re the only ones in the universe.

The aftermath of their nuclear fission is akin to monks rewriting Byzantine literature: arduous, and at times frustrating, but so incredibly worth it in the end. Luckily, Richie, diploma in hand, running into Fonzie’s outstretched arms is far from the closing of their story. In this chapter, they are less boys and more magnets. Industrial ones. Tearing them apart is such a chore that Howard stops trying. They’ve turned making up for lost time into a kind of skill, one they’ve mastered, one that shines in their ever-brushing hands and near telepathic communication that Joanie lovingly dubs “freaky”. Being in love comes so naturally that there’s no real need to comment on it. They do anyway, whenever they can. 

The future is a pitfall they can’t avoid, and the apartment knocks that home. They hit a wall. The money runs drier than the job opportunities, and Fonzie panics. He doesn’t blame middle class cushiness for favoring his boyfriend, but he knows what it’s like to be on the other end, knows what it’s like to really go without. A child of the Depression with no reparations, Fonzie is a neglected dog, but when he growls over his food Richie does not turn him away. He patiently shows him the next lesson learned, one in faith. Scarcities don’t last. Fonzie’s shaky hands grasp that proverb as tightly as they can, and the body attached to them learns to cope. Less a magnet and more a boy, now. His south pole adores him regardless. He also doesn’t let him fret for long. A library job paired with double the cars fixed lets them eat again. They become connoisseurs of poring over books and TV dinners alike, master students of “happily broke”. And happy they are. Even if it’s only two rooms with a kitchenette, it’s more than enough for them to hold hands freely, and that, to quote the great poet Fonzarelli, is kinda the point. 

Six months turns into two years, turns into four. The apartment turns into a… slightly bigger apartment, Richie’s hair turns long, and one dog turns into three, plus the cats. It is messy and lovely all at once, so it’s only fitting that the question is asked the same way, down on one shaky knee on the kitchen floor. Fonzie has never been able to deny Richie before, and he’s not about to start now. The Fonzarelli Curse is lifted with a promise he intends to keep.

Fonzie has needed Richie his entire life. He is a fire, prey turned predator; he was a solitary creature when Richie found him, keen on staying that way. Alas, Richie himself was born a pack animal, and before Fonzie could say no he was already staying for dinner. Richie needed him, as well. He needed wild and passionate and beautiful, and once he got it, there was nothing better. Their grand, head on collision was nothing short of cosmic design. Two halves of a whole. A star, once split apart, now pulled back together through the grace of the universe. They both knew that, had it written on their hearts. Stripped down to their barest parts, they would still always have one another, through every shortage and misadventures and heartache. The word love took on its truest meaning in the souls of those two boys. 

Fonzie doesn’t believe in forever until the word passes Richie Cunningham’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> come validate me on tumblr:  
> art- posiekid  
> happy days- wallflowerletsdance


End file.
